- Ugh, I am so stressed.
I can't learn, I can't memorize,
I can't study because I'm stressed, I have so much anxiety.
Guess what?
Stress and anxiety is probably one of the biggest enemies
to your brain when it wants to memorize,
when it wants to learn, when it wants to study.
So we really have to implement strategies
to combat our stress and anxiety.
I have had to deal with stress and anxiety in my life
when I'm trying to memorize something.
In 2009, I set the record for the fastest to memorize
a deck of cards in the United States.
They shuffle up a deck of cards,
they set it in front of you, you pick it up,
you look through it as fast as you can, you set it down,
then you pick up another deck and reassemble that deck
to match the first deck that you memorized from memory.
And I did that in 2009,
and I did it in a minute and 27 seconds.
And at the time that was a record for the United States.
That then also is a stressful situation.
It's stressful to be memorizing when you have cameras
from ABC, and NBC, and Fox,
and all these TV channels around me,
reporters taking pictures.
Now I am there trying to memorize something
while this is happening.
It's a stressful situation.
How do I deal with stress when I'm trying to memorize?
The first thing that I do is I remind myself,
"Hey, you don't have to be perfect here."
And this doesn't just apply to memorizing a deck of cards,
whatever it is in your life that you're trying to learn,
or that you're just trying to memorize,
that you're trying to study,
get it out of your mind that you have to be perfect.
That feeling that you have to be perfect
is just gonna create more stress and more anxiety.
And you may say, "Well Ron, of course you have to be perfect
when you're memorizing a deck of cards.
'Cause it has to be in perfectly the right order."
Yes and no.
Really, and this is something that's really important
for anybody to recognize,
when you're memorizing a deck of cards,
you really only have to memorize it 90 to 95% perfect.
Because what happens is,
is when you're reassembling the deck,
you're gonna put it all in order as you remember,
and then there's gonna be gaps in there
that you don't remember.
Well, guess what?
You'll have cards left over in your hand,
and you'll look at those
and they will be the hints that you remember,
"Oh yeah, I do remember that card,
that went there, that went there."
This is a metaphor for life,
when you're trying to learn something in life,
don't worry about having to get it perfect.
Try to get it as close to perfect as you can.
But let's say you're trying to study
something like history or science,
well, you memorize it and you understand it 90%,
or really, really good.
And there's parts left over that don't make sense.
Well, guess what?
Those parts are left over in the hand of your brain,
and maybe the parts that you do know
will help explain the parts that you don't know.
So number one,
take it off your table that you have to be perfect.
Number two, when you're trying to memorize
or learn something, if you're having mental block,
and if it's just not making sense to you, stop,
take a break, and walk away from it.
I do this all the time.
And believe it or not, I do this in my speeches.
Yeah, that's right.
I'm on a stage in front of 500 people,
and I'm trying to memorize names in the audience,
or I'm trying to memorize a number and I can't do it,
guess what I do?
I take a break, I stop, and I walk away from it.
You may say, "That's impossible.
How can you walk away from memorizing
when you're on a stage in front of 500 people?"
Well, here's what happens,
and I have done this over 29 years.
So many times I can't even remember it,
but there were two times in that 29 years
that it was catastrophic almost,
in my mind it was catastrophic.
This is what I do, before I speak, before I give a speech,
I will always walk around and I'll introduce myself
to as many people as I can in the audience.
And I'll try to get 100, 200, 300 people,
their names memorized when I give my speech.
Then when I get up on stage, I'll say,
"All right stand up, if I met you stand up."
And all these two, 300 people in the audience will stand up.
I will be walking around the room
and I'll be repeating their names.
"Brian, you can sit down. Tom, you can sit down.
Lisa, you can sit down. Karen, you can sit down.
Steve, you can sit down."
And I'll be pointing to them and having them sit down.
Inevitably, I will get to someone
and I don't know their name.
In that moment, what do you think I do?
I don't stand there and stare at that person and think,
"Oh my gosh, what is their name?
I can't figure out their name."
Why do I not do that? Because it would just cause me stress.
I would have all these people,
hundreds of people staring at me
while I'm struggling to remember something.
Instead I say, "I'm gonna come back to you."
And I keep going.
Why do I do that? Because it keeps my brain relaxed.
I'm not stressing over what I don't know.
And then after I've repeated everything that I do know,
I go back to that one that I did not know.
And sometimes the name just pops up.
Sometimes it doesn't,
and I'll have to make some jokes about it,
but I would say a great majority of the time,
the name will pop up into my memory.
In essence, what I'm doing is when I can't recall it,
I'm walking away from it.
If you're taking a history test, or a science test,
or trying to pass some certification exam,
and you're taking that test and you get to a question
and you can't remember the answer to it,
mark it so you know to come back to it and then keep going.
This will keep your brain relaxed.
Now, if you're in the study process,
and you're trying to study for a test,
and you're not actually taking the test in that moment,
then you can actually close the book,
stand up, and walk away.
Go for a walk, go outside, get some fresh air, take a break.
Next, give yourself permission to have stress, and anxiety,
and brain fog, and depression.
Now hear me out when I say this.
When I say, give yourself permission,
I'm not saying that you just lay there,
and say, "Oh, I'm not gonna do anything today
because I have stress.
I'm not gonna do anything today because I have brain fog.
I'm not gonna do anything because I have anxiety."
That is giving into it.
And that is different than giving yourself permission.
Here's what I mean, I get brain fog,
I get anxiety, I get stressed.
And what happens when I get those things?
When I get brain fog,
I'll daydream and I'll stare out the window
for 20 or 30 minutes,
or I'll just go for a walk, or I'll turn on the TV,
or I'll check my email or Facebook.
I'm not consciously avoiding everything.
And I'm not consciously in the brain fog.
But somewhere in that brain fog,
somewhere in the middle of that stress or anxiety,
the alarm bells will go off in my head,
"Dude, what are you doing?
You're supposed to be studying right now.
And you can't focus because you're stressed
and you have brain fog."
In that moment, I catch myself and I don't beat myself up.
I don't say, "You're so stupid, why are you stressed?
Why can't you focus?"
I don't do that.
I say, "Oh, you're having a hard time focusing right now.
That's okay, but let's get back to it.
Oh, you're having a hard time learning right now.
That's okay, but let's get back to it."
And that's what I mean by giving yourself permission.
Stop beating yourself up over it.
It's something you struggle with,
acknowledge you struggle with it,
and then take steps to lessen it.
When I was training in participating
in the USA Memory Championships,
and the World Memory Championships,
the week before the tournament, I stopped training, why?
Because at that point,
either I knew the information or I didn't.
I just stopped training.
The entire week before the tournament
was devoted to relaxation.
I had trained hard for 90 days before the tournament.
The week before, no more training, relaxation.
Now it was light training
in the sense that I was visualizing, and walking around,
and rehearsing my routine and all that,
but all the tough training was done.
I wanted myself to be relaxed
when I was competing in the tournament.
And here's something else that I'll say,
just pause, just breathe.
If you're stressed out, you're trying to learn,
you can't remember something, pause,
breathe. (breathes deeply)
You will be amazed at the benefits of just deep breathing.
You're gonna be stressed when you're trying to learn,
you're gonna be stressed when you're trying to memorize,
you're gonna be stressed
when you're needing to perform in the moment,
but give yourself permission to be stressed,
work to overcome it, take breaks, pause, take deep breaths,
skip what you don't know and come back to it.
And all of these tools will help you deal with stress
or anxiety when you're trying to learn something,
or when you're trying to memorize.
My name is Ron White,
I'm a two-time USA Memory Champion.
I have a course called "Black Belt Memory"
where I teach you how to memorize anything you want,
names, numbers, speeches,
study for any certification exam, pass any test.
The link is down below for my "Black Belt Memory" course.
Check it out.
You'll also get my three tips to improving your memory
in a free PDF at that link.
So click the link, get the free PDF,
find out about my "Black Belt Memory" course.
If you deal with stress, or anxiety, or depression,
comment down below,
and tell me how you deal with that in your studying.
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